CIDS Talk

On the 4th March, we were invited to give our first ever talk as the Thoughtful 6 along with James, Chris and Stuart at Stockport Art Gallery. The event was organised by CIDS and unfortunately it was to be their last, so we had to make sure that our talk went well (we wouldn’t have wanted them to go out on a low!).

We were all a bit nervous about the talk, but I think most people are okay with public speaking. One advantage we did have though, is that Thoughtful have been preparing us for these kind of things without us really knowing it, or appreciating it at the time. They gave a small brief to the whole class last November, and we had to present our ideas to Chris, James, Stuart, our tutor and the rest of the class, plus it was filmed. They try and get us speaking on film as much as we can, so we learn to think on the spot, relax more, and just get used to it really.

The problem with us giving the talk was that we’re only in month three of the project, so it wasn’t really possible to give the whole story, which would have made a much better presentation. Plus we didn’t have much time to prepare. Stuart had a good idea though – we’d give an overview of what the project is, and then people would ask us questions that we’d printed out beforehand and sneakily left on their desks. This would fill the awkward silence when we ask ‘Does anyone have any questions?’ and would also allow us to think of the answers in advance to stop us looking at each other saying ‘errrr...’ which would have been embarrassing.

As it happens, the talk was good. It wasn’t too formal and there was a lot of interaction with the audience, so it felt more like a chat. We thought we’d never fill our 20 minute slot but as it turned out, we could have talked for more than an hour. Half the questions we planted didn’t even get asked as we ran out of time.

There were sheets of paper on the tables where each guest could give a score to parts of the event. We just hope 'Guest Speakers’ did as well as ‘Food and Drink’...

We’d like to thank Chris from CIDS for inviting us to do our first talk and Mel for explaining the background to the project better than we ever could.